Remaining within Old Lines:
An Examination of Daphne Berdahl’s Where the World Ended
In Where the World Ended, Daphne Berdahl explores via ethnographic study the creation and evolution of identities in the town of Kella. Located within the 500-meter Schutzstreifen along the Grenze (the inter-German border during the Cold War), residents of Kella experienced strict surveillance from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and lived with additional regulations. Berdahl presents Kella as floating between the East and West; however, the impenetrability of the inter-German border from 1952 to 1989 instituted Eastern economic and cultural practices in Kella until the entire GDR experienced the fall of socialism. In this paper, I will demonstrate that …show more content…
According to Berdahl, anthropology has traditionally focused on “cultural boundaries as a means of understanding the dynamics of identity formation and expression” (4). In other words, anthropologists study how cultural differences lead to the creation and expression of self. Expression often manifests itself in the establishment of physical borders as described by Peter Mewett: “Boundaries are constructed out of preexisting differences, which they act not only to reinforce but also to create” (5). In order to both “move away from binarisms of the border by focusing on hybrid space” and to include Kella within the inter-German border, Berdahl uses the term borderland to describe the special, in-between space often associated with ambiguity (6). With this definition, she describes her borderland of study: “It is a site of cultural confrontation, articulation, and, to a large extent, penetration, where struggles over the production of cultural meanings occur in the context of asymmetrical relations between East and West” (9). Although the town of Kella did experience cultural confrontation with the rise and fall socialism, I will argue that the town’s proximity to the West seldom exacerbated this …show more content…
After a brief period of celebration, tension developed between the East and West. Ursula Meyer described the devaluation of the socialist East by the capitalist West: “Everything we did [under socialism] was wrong. The streets we built were wrong and the trees we planted were wrong” (163). This tension resulted in the strengthening of the East versus West dichotomy and cultural otherness, first established by the Grenze itself. By 1992, East Germans stopped “accepting passively the dominance of the West” and opted instead to challenge it (174). For example, the residents of Kella started to consume Eastern products that had been considered inferior and to celebrate Eastern culture during the annual Fasching celebration. In Chapter 6, a middle-aged woman named Ingrid describes the decision to start wearing the traditional kittle again: “[The wearing of smocks] subsided in the first years after the Wende, but somewhere it’s a part of us” (204). Berdahl interprets such trends as part of the “process that is occurring throughout re-unified Germany but that takes on particular significance at the (former) border…where identities are especially fluid and distinctions are articulated” (180). Instead, I argue this trend represents the attempt to avoid the construction,
An Examination of Daphne Berdahl’s Where the World Ended
In Where the World Ended, Daphne Berdahl explores via ethnographic study the creation and evolution of identities in the town of Kella. Located within the 500-meter Schutzstreifen along the Grenze (the inter-German border during the Cold War), residents of Kella experienced strict surveillance from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and lived with additional regulations. Berdahl presents Kella as floating between the East and West; however, the impenetrability of the inter-German border from 1952 to 1989 instituted Eastern economic and cultural practices in Kella until the entire GDR experienced the fall of socialism. In this paper, I will demonstrate that …show more content…
According to Berdahl, anthropology has traditionally focused on “cultural boundaries as a means of understanding the dynamics of identity formation and expression” (4). In other words, anthropologists study how cultural differences lead to the creation and expression of self. Expression often manifests itself in the establishment of physical borders as described by Peter Mewett: “Boundaries are constructed out of preexisting differences, which they act not only to reinforce but also to create” (5). In order to both “move away from binarisms of the border by focusing on hybrid space” and to include Kella within the inter-German border, Berdahl uses the term borderland to describe the special, in-between space often associated with ambiguity (6). With this definition, she describes her borderland of study: “It is a site of cultural confrontation, articulation, and, to a large extent, penetration, where struggles over the production of cultural meanings occur in the context of asymmetrical relations between East and West” (9). Although the town of Kella did experience cultural confrontation with the rise and fall socialism, I will argue that the town’s proximity to the West seldom exacerbated this …show more content…
After a brief period of celebration, tension developed between the East and West. Ursula Meyer described the devaluation of the socialist East by the capitalist West: “Everything we did [under socialism] was wrong. The streets we built were wrong and the trees we planted were wrong” (163). This tension resulted in the strengthening of the East versus West dichotomy and cultural otherness, first established by the Grenze itself. By 1992, East Germans stopped “accepting passively the dominance of the West” and opted instead to challenge it (174). For example, the residents of Kella started to consume Eastern products that had been considered inferior and to celebrate Eastern culture during the annual Fasching celebration. In Chapter 6, a middle-aged woman named Ingrid describes the decision to start wearing the traditional kittle again: “[The wearing of smocks] subsided in the first years after the Wende, but somewhere it’s a part of us” (204). Berdahl interprets such trends as part of the “process that is occurring throughout re-unified Germany but that takes on particular significance at the (former) border…where identities are especially fluid and distinctions are articulated” (180). Instead, I argue this trend represents the attempt to avoid the construction,